You are everything that's ever been my favourite thing," she wanted to tell him. "You're my love song, my birthday cake, the sound of ocean waves and French words and a baby's laugh. You're a snow angel, crème brulée, a kaleidoscope filled with glitter. I love you and you'll never catch up, because I've gotten a head start and my heart is racing at light speed.

Women. You'll interpret anything as love. You see a man wearing an idiotic expression, and you assume he's been struck by Cupid's arrow when in reality, he's digesting a bad turnip.

A slow smile had curved St. Vincent's lips. 'Wives are a different case altogether. They require a great deal of effort but the rewards are substantial. I highly recommend wives. Especially one's own.

To Jack, there was nothing more powerful than a promise made over a handshake. He would have died ー literally chosen death ー before breaking his word.

My theory about meeting people,' he said,'is that it's better not to make a really good first impression. Because it's all downhill from there. You're always having to live up to that first impression, which was just an illusion.

What did you do with memories, feelings, needs, that didn’t belong anywhere?

She heard the trace of fear in his voice. The fear that a small boy must have felt when every woman he loved had disappeared from his life, swept away by a merciless fever. She didn’t know how to reassure him, or how to console his long-ago grief.